Relationships by Grace part 2

Lookout Mountain Community Church, Evergreen, CO
Sermon Text
Dr. Bill H. Senyard

From a 1950 Home Economics Book:

So Wives, here ya go!  You heard it here first.

Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return from work. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal (especially his favorite dish) is part of the warm welcome needed.

Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you will be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking. He has just been with a lot of work weary people. His boring day may need a lift.

Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash the children’s hands and faces (if they are small), comb their hair, and, if necessary, change their clothes. They are his little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part.

Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the house just before your husband arrives.

Gather up school books, toys, papers etc. and then dust cloth the tables. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order and it will give you a lift too.

Minimize the noise. Be sure there is no noise from washer, dryer, dishwasher or vacuum. Encourage the children to be quiet. Greet him with a warm smile and be glad to see him.

Don’t greet him with complaints or problems. Don’t complain if he is late for dinner. Count this as minor compared to what he may have gone through that day.

Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair. Have a cooling drink ready for him. Offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a soft voice. Allow him to relax and unwind. Listen to him. You may have a dozen things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him speak first.

Make the evening his. Never complain if he does not take you out to dinner or to other places of entertainment. Instead try to understand his world and pressure, his need to be home and relaxed.

THE GOAL: try to make your home a place of peace and order where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.

Q: So men, what do you think????

Q: Women, what do you think???

Why would this be very difficult to do?  Why does something inside you cringe at this prospect?  What immediate knee jerk reaction does your soul have to this?

Honestly, if you had to—if you knew that you were being graded for your strict performance according to these guidleness, you could probably do this.  Right?  But what’s wrong with that approach?

[typical answers—“my heart doesn’t want to do it.”  “It would be hypocritical, what about me, what about my needs, aren’t I as valuable as Hubby?  I don’t feel “RIGHT!”]

So you could do it for a while, maybe a day, or hour—but a lifestyle????? And as you did it, internally you would be burning.   But here’s the instruction from Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Ladies, wives, you who have been wives, you who desire to be… listen to this with fresh ears.

22 Wives, hupotasso to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. 24 Now as the church hupotassos to Christ, so also wives should hupotasso to their husbands in everything. (Eph 5:22-24)

I replaced the English word (the “S” word) with the actual Greek counterpart.  Paul uses hupotasso 23xs in his letters.  It is an important reality to Paul.

Hupotasso refers to the placing of oneself in community—in relationship to another deeply desiring the greater good for the other, the well-being of the other even though it costs you.  It can perhaps include (but not always) placing yourself under the authority of another in order to accomplish a mutual goal—for the sake of community and the larger good, for the Kingdom’s work—for the gospel’s sake.

By the way, hupetasso is not a function of the greatness of the one hupotassoed.  We are called to hupotasso to greater, equals or those of lower societal status.  This is the very nature of God. Trinity.  God hupotassos by His very nature.  We (both male and female) hate hupotassoing.  Even though the word is not used specifically, it is clearly modelled by Jesus in Phil 2, where he dies for others—clearly for lesser unworthy undeserving persons like me.  His hupotassoing was staggering and scandalous.  I am afraid that He might require me to hupotasso others that way.

For the sake of gospel, we are to hupotasso to governments, civil authorities, church leaders, elders, and parents.  And everyone is to be in the spirit of hupotasso even to one another… for this is the essence of God’s righteousness.  This is one of the key fruit of our conversion, of the Spirit in our redeemed “new” hearts.

Hupotasso is the anti-consumeristic mentality.  The anti-independent anti-self-sufficient mentality of our culture.  It should look and feel to others very strange.  Do we see such a temperament bent naturally.  Sure, good teachers hupotasso students.  Good Coaches hupotasso players.  Missionaries huppostasso unreached people groups.  The idea is that the objects of hupotassoing are to do better, feel better etc.  Empowered by the Spirit, we can go even further.

And this is the Lord’s will?  This is it?  Who can do it?  Who among us is willing to radically hupotasso to one another on an ongoing basis, to think of the needs of others first, to take the role of a coach, mentor, discipler, encourager, teacher, servant, giver/investor to take the role of the second….. for no other reason, no agenda, no desire for individual glory…  It is nigh impossible.  We can do it for a while, if we like each other—but if we don’t ?

This is one of the weaknesses of dating.  Anyone can hupotasso someone else for a few months or even a year or two.  As long as they plan on getting something from their labors.  Whew!

 And to bring his argument home, Paul goes one step further.  Wives, hupotasso to your husbands.  There is no need to sugar coat this at all.  Paul says that this testifies to the world of the powerful presence of the Spirit in you ladies.  This is one of your greatest witnesses.  But honestly, I don’t think we can even talk about it in public, right?

Problem?  Ladies, you cannot do this.  Your heart will not do this well.  In your fallen natures, the remnant of which lingers powerfully even after you have flung yourself on the cross because you once realized how needy and helpless you were in your sin.  You do not want to do this. Wives, girlfriends, this is at the very heart of your curse…. that is the curse God wrought upon Eve after the fall.

Gen 3:16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” (NIV)

Better translated, “Your desire will be to rule over your husband.”  (to anti-hupotasso him) Deeply woven into your fallen being—what the Bible refers to as your “flesh” or your “sinful nature” is a desire to fight your husband…to not want to hupotasso at all.  This “flesh” remains with you until you die.  It is transformed and is being transformed, by the Spirit of God within you—hopefully, but it is always there motivating you in a self-centered self-serving—anti-hupotasso direction.  Maybe a little, maybe a lot—the relative scale depends a lot upon a lot of circumstances, temperament and past issues.   Paul is commanding you to go against your fallen cursed nature.  That’s the rub!

KEY!  Your relationships in particular expose the deep formative roots of your residual nature.  Or to put it clearer, the Law that demands that we want to hupotasso others over ourselves (including our spouses) really rubs against our flesh.

Wives, the law of God commands that you must want to hupotasso your spouse, whether he is honorable or not, whether he brings flowers or not… whether he is a clone of Dr. Dobson, whether he looks like Channing Tatum or Gerard Butler or not… it matters only slightly.  But down not so deep, in your flesh, your desire is the opposite of hupotassoing—in fact, you want to be huppotassoed to.   You won’t hupotasso regularly with no strings attached.  It is humanly impossible.  Now isn’t this interesting that a preacher stands up here and tells you that you really can’t do something that God commands you to do?  As Jack Miller says, “Good News, you are far worse than you think.”

And ladies it is a cop out to say, even under your breath, “Well I would follow my husband if he were a bit more like Christ.”  The truth of the matter, if your record was opened for all of us to see, you have not done a good job hupotassoing Christ either!  In fact, your flesh has resisted hupotassing Jesus.  Remember, God’s minimum standard is perfection in all of these things.

Paul ramps it up for the men.  Husbands, former husbands, widowers, husband wannabes.  Your task is far more difficult.  God’s will for you is nothing short of miraculous and superhuman.

25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

Men, husbands and boyfriends, now Paul targets a huge area of weakness in your practice as well.  This is something that you cannot do.  You do not know how.  You don’t really want to.  Its genetic really.  Your parents did not know how.  Your grandparents did not know how.  Neither do you.  Oh, you may have moments of great grandeur, where you unselfishly loved your wife for a brief period of time without any agenda. We can pull that off in dating periods, right?  In order to get something.

But the idea here is to do it all of the time!!!  And want to do it at our core level.  This is more than taking her to dinner once a week, having couch times, and giving a full measure of “significant touches.” It is more than reading Men are from Mars and Women are from who the heck knows where.  Perhaps all of those things are good and useful but that is not what Paul is describing here.  That is far, far short of the mark.  You are to love your wife as Christ loved the church….

And it is a cop out to say, “I would love her if she was more lovable!”  If she looked more like Katy Perry.  You are to love her as Christ loves the church as He loves the likes of you and me!

Apostle Paul, there is no way… I cannot do it.   My selfish, demanding, anti-hupotasso, critical, envious, scorekeeping, and unforgiving sinful nature is so ever-present.  How am I to do this? 

26 to make her holy,cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Now Paul unloads it all, the entire weight of his argument.  Men, all you need to do is to love your wife so much, and give yourself up for her so completely, that she is transformed into a person completely set apart for God…. holy.  You are to so dedicate yourselves to the ministry of the word to her, that in the end you will be able to present her to Christ as a radiant perfect unspoiled bride…. without stain or wrinkly… holy and blameless.  That is all you have to do.

If you couldn’t grasp your task before, you will certainly fall short here.  First of all, OK I am buying into the need here.  As I look at my wife, and by the way, I probably am a bit biased in thinking think that she is less spirutally wrinkled than many–most… but she is hardly blameless and without character wrinkles.  OK I can see the need.  But I gotta tell you, I have found that I am the last person she normally wants to hear about change from.  She doesn’t want me messing with her wrinkles—OK that didn’t come out quite like I had wanted.  Admittedly, my requests of suggested fixes are biased and at times self serving…. I am not a good agent if transformation of  my wife is the goal.  Secondly, it wouldn’t make any difference anyway.  What in the world do I know about holiness… or being wrinkle free, or blameless.  I wouldn’t know where to direct her.  I mean, isn’t this the blind leading the blind?

Absolute zero

So such good news in this series on Relationships by Grace.  We begin with this.  Husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlefriends—this is Mission Impossible.

Q: First of all, lets get honest here.  Severely honest.  What is it that your ever-present sinful nature desires?  What does the Spirit in you desire? 

Listen to Paul speaking about Christians—not unbelievers, but those of us who really want to follow Jesus.

The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by (lit. in) the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not (lit.: not in) by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. (Rom 8:6-9 NIV)

Lit–Those who are in the sinful nature cannot please God.  You however are not in the sinful nature but in the Spirit, if it is true that the Spirit of God is dwelling in you.

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.Rom 8:5-6  

Step 1?  Admit that you have been motivated more than you realize or want to admit by your self-centered, self-serving, self-protecting and fearful flesh.  Admit that you have been less motivated and empowered by the Spirit in you.  [i.e., REPENT!]

Step 2?  Be filled with the Spirit of God.  [i.e., Believe!]

All Jesus Followers have the Spirit dwelling in them, but you have the right to request from God

5:18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

This is a picture of a man and a woman immersed in God–filled with the spirit.  They have caught the notion that—in their nature–they are far more failures than they could ever imagine or would ever want to admit.  But drenched with the Spirit, they—for a moment or two—they are miraculously not so concerned with guarding their own rights, reputations, authority.  They even begin to feel thankful to God for their undeserved relationship with Him.

We need men and women, husbands and wives who are finally at the point where they cry out to God and say, “Help!!  We cannot do it!  But we believe that Christ can!  We lay down our trust in our abilities, our emotions, our brilliant communication techniques… etc.  Only Christ can take this relationship to a higher level.  Fill us with your Holy Spirit!  Take full control.  The good news is that I am worse than I think.  My wife was right after all.

Good News Husbands, single guys.  Listen to Paul in Eph 1:4—just a few pages before the last command.

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.  (Eph 1:4 NIV)

Here is the huge punchline.  You that thing that you were charged to do—to make your wife holy and blameless?  What Paul charged you with, God is already committed to doing!  You are called to participate by faith in what God is committed to doing. Tough for guys to do.  It takes deep hupotasso faith.

Let me go back to dating for a moment.

Typical questions/statements  (the heart of the batchelor and batchelorette reality shows)?

“Is she the one for me?  He makes me feel so good about my self.  No one has made me feel so high.  When I am with her I feel so wonderful.”

Q?:  Singles, comment on these statements.  They sound right don’t they?  And reasonable in our culture.  But critique them?  What is wrong with this picture?  Where is the hupotasso?  Where is the desire for the others to feel high?

Striking consumeristic mentality.  Normal in our culture.  By the way, normal in the Biblical culture too.  But not the ideal.  My charge to all of us is to repent/believe and access something far better than this.